Around The Empire

Guest: Giorgio Cafiero. We discuss the civil war and complicated foreign intervention in Libya. We first do a review of what has happened in Libya since the 2011 overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi and then we sort out the situation in Libya right now. There is an extra (bonus question) for patrons only (Ep 173EXTRA) about the outlook for Libya going forward, whether it's likely to split and/or be used as a battlefield by larger powers.

Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO and founder of Gulf State Analytics, a geopolitical risk consultancy based in Washington, DC. His research interests include geopolitical and security trends in the Arabian Peninsula and the broader Middle East. He is a regular contributor to the Middle East Institute, Al Monitor, LobeLog, Inside Arabia, and New Arab and he frequently appears as a commentator on various media networks. He is also an adjunct fellow at the American Security Project, an affiliate at the Mena Center and an analyst at London-based advisory Rosa & Roubini Associates.

FOLLOW @GiorgioCafiero. Find him at Gulf State Analytics.

Around the Empire is listener supported, independent media. Pitch in at Patreon: patreon.com/aroundtheempire or paypal.me/aroundtheempirepod. Find all links at aroundtheempire.com.

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Recorded on June 28, 2020. Music by Fluorescent Grey.

Guest: Margaret Kimberley. We talk about Margaret's new book: Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents and about the current Black Lives Matter protest movement. Here is Dr. Cornel West's comment about the book: "Margaret Kimberley gives us an intellectual gem or prophetic fire about all the U.S. presidents and their deep roots in the vicious legacy of white supremacy and predatory capitalism. Such truths seem more than most Americans can bear, though we ignore her words at our own peril!"

There is an extra (bonus question) for patrons only (Ep 172EXTRA) where we get Margaret's advice for people who strongly support anti-racism, strongly oppose police brutality, discrimination and the militarization of police but who prefer peaceful protests and are uncomfortable with random violence and political exploitation of these issues by disingenuous politicians and others who are actually part of the problem themselves.

Margaret Kimberley is an author and she's the co-founder and Editor and Senior Columnist for Black Agenda Report (BAR). Her Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She is from New York City and her work has appeared in numerous publications and sites. She also writes on her own FreedomRider blog.

FOLLOW Margaret on Twitter @freedomrideblog Find her work at the Black Agenda Report and at her FreedomRider blog.

Around the Empire is listener supported, independent media. Pitch in at Patreon: patreon.com/aroundtheempire or paypal.me/aroundtheempirepod. Find all links at aroundtheempire.com.

SUBSCRIBE on YouTube. FOLLOW @aroundtheempire and @joanneleon. SUBSCRIBE/FOLLOW on iTunes, iHeart, Spotify, Google Play, Facebook or on your preferred podcast app.

Recorded on June 20, 2020. Music by Fluorescent Grey.

Reference Links:

1. Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents by Margaret Kimberley

Joanne Leon and Dan Wright do another quarantine episode while on newly reduced lockdown in New Jersey in a conversation about the pandemic, protests, the movement to defund police, the hypocrisy of politicians, and Governor Murphy the Friendly Cartoonish Dictator. We also talk about majoritarianism, Turchin's theory on stability, inequality and the overproduction of elites, and more. This episode is for patrons only and may be unlocked for the public at a later date.

FOLLOW Dan on Twitter @DanSWright

Around the Empire is listener supported, independent media. Pitch in at Patreon: patreon.com/aroundtheempire or paypal.me/aroundtheempirepod. Find all links at aroundtheempire.com.

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Recorded on June 18, 2020. Music by Fluorescent Grey.

Reference Links:

1. This model forecast the US's current unrest a decade ago. It now says 'civil war', Australian Broadcasting Corp.
2. The Science behind My Forecast for 2020, Peter Turchin
3. Elite Overproduction, Inequality, and the Unraveling of Cooperation (Structural-Demographic Dynamics), Peter Turchin

Guest: Whitney Webb. We discuss Whitney's three-part series titled Engineering Contagion: Amerithrax, Coronavirus and the Rise of the Biotech Industrial Complex, which she and Raul Diego wrote during the past few months.

Quoting from the first article in the series:

"This investigative series, entitled 'Engineering Contagion: Amerithrax, Coronavirus and the Rise of the Biotech-Industrial Complex,' will examine these disturbing parallels between the 2001 anthrax attacks and the current scandals and "solutions" of the Covid-19 crisis as well as the simulations that eerily preceded both events. By tracing key actors in Dark Winter from 2001 to the present, it is also possible to trace the corruption that has lurked behind U.S. "biodefense" and pandemic preparedness efforts for decades and which now is rearing its ugly head as pandemic panic distracts the American and global public from the fundamentally untrustworthy, and frankly dangerous, individuals who are in control of the U.S. government's and corporate America's response.

Given their involvement in Dark Winter and, more recently, Event 201 and Crimson Contagion, this series seeks to explore the possibility that, just like the 2001 anthrax attacks, government insiders had foreknowledge of the Covid-19 crisis on a scale that, thus far, has gone unreported and that those same insiders are now manipulating the government's response and public panic in order to reap record profits and gain unprecedented power for themselves and control over people's lives."

Whitney Webb is a writer and research and soon to be author. She has made numerous radio, television and video appearances on a variety of programs across the political spectrum. Her work aims to highlight under-reported issues and find common ground between people of different political persuasions regarding corruption, government overreach, the lack of accountability for militaries and intelligence agencies and the military-industrial complex. She publishes at The Last American Vagabond and on her website Unlimited Hangout and she is the host of a new podcast, also titled Unlimited Hangout. She was formerly a staff writer at MintPress News.

FOLLOW Whitney @_whitneywebb SUBSCRIBE to her podcast Unlimited Hangout and find her work at Unlimited Hangout and at The Last American Vagabond.

Around the Empire is listener supported, independent media. Pitch in at Patreon: patreon.com/aroundtheempire or paypal.me/aroundtheempirepod. Find all links at aroundtheempire.com.

SUBSCRIBE on YouTube. FOLLOW @aroundtheempire and @joanneleon. SUBSCRIBE/FOLLOW on iTunes, iHeart, Spotify, Google Play, Facebook or on your preferred podcast app.

Recorded on June 9, 2020. Music by Fluorescent Grey.

Reference Links:

1. Engineering Contagion (Part 1): ALL ROADS LEAD TO DARK WINTER, Whitney Webb
2. Engineering Contagion (Part 2): A KILLER ENTERPRISE: HOW ONE OF BIG PHARMA'S MOST CORRUPT COMPANIES PLANS TO CORNER THE COVID-19 CURE MARKET, Whitney Webb
3. Engineering Contagion (Part 3): HEAD OF THE HYDRA: THE RISE OF ROBERT KADLEC, Whitney Webb
4. Unlimited Hangout podcast episode 1

Guest: Elijah Magnier. Eventually, sanctioned countries collaborate with each other. In the age of decline of the Anglo-American empire, every tool in the toolbox has been pulled out and weaponized and deployed to maintain dominance and for much longer than is normally effective. Elijah explains how Russia, Venezuela and the axis of resistance in the Middle East (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen) with assistance from China are collaborating to overcome and get around both long standing and ever increasing sanctions by the US and allied countries and also finding ways to be more self sufficient to the point where the sanctions have much less impact and in some ways destructive for those doing the sanctioning. We also talk about the latest developments in Syria and the reconstruction dilemma.

There's an extra/bonus segment for patrons. Given that this seems like a turning point for the US and the world, I ask Elijah for insights on whether there are parallels in history and for his views on how things are likely to play out. You can find that on Patreon, Episode 169 EXTRA.

Elijah Magnier is a veteran war correspondent and political analyst with over 35 years of experience covering the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

FOLLOW Elijah Magnier @ejmalrai. Read and support his work at ejmagnier.com

Around the Empire is listener supported, independent media. Pitch in at Patreon: patreon.com/aroundtheempire or paypal.me/aroundtheempirepod. Find all links at aroundtheempire.com.

SUBSCRIBE on YouTube. FOLLOW @aroundtheempire and @joanneleon. SUBSCRIBE/FOLLOW on iTunes, iHeart, Spotify, Google Play, Facebook or on your preferred podcast app.

Recorded on June 5, 2020. Music by Fluorescent Grey.

Reference Links:

1. The Persian Rug Weaver Strikes in the US's Backyard Through Venezuela, Elijah Magnier
2. Syria Caesar's Law: Who Does it Target and How Will it Affect President Assad? Elijah Magnier
3. Syria: Russia Challenges the US Through the Levant Gate, Elijah Magnier
4. Syria: Will the Great Middle Eastern War Begin in the Levant? Elijah Magnier

Guest: Danny Sjursen. Swapcast: Around the Empire's Joanne Leon and Foreign Policy Focus host Kyle Anzalone. We discuss Danny's experience on the ground at the protests in Kansas City and the broader protest movement, whether this is an insurrection, the idea of calling in the military to act as a police force or worse, and the parallels between current policing practices and counterinsurgency missions.

Major Danny Sjursen is a retired US Army strategist, West Point grad and former history instructor at West Point. He served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War titled: Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge and a new book available for pre-order now: Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War. His articles are published by numerous media outlets: antiwar.com, The American Conservative, Truthdig, TomDispatch and others. He is the co-host of the Fortress on a Hill podcast.

FOLLOW Danny @SkepticalVet, SUBSCRIBE to the podcast Fortress on a Hill and find his website at skepticalvet.com

FOLLOW Kyle on Twitter: @Kyaaale. SUBSCRIBE to the podcast Foreign Policy Focus at the Libertarian Institute.

Around the Empire is listener supported, independent media. Pitch in at Patreon: patreon.com/aroundtheempire or paypal.me/aroundtheempirepod. Find all links at aroundtheempire.com.

SUBSCRIBE on YouTube. FOLLOW @aroundtheempire and @joanneleon. SUBSCRIBE/FOLLOW on iTunes, iHeart, Spotify, Google Play, Facebook or on your preferred podcast app.

Recorded on June 5, 2020. Music by Fluorescent Grey.

Reference Links:

1. Dispatches From Kansas City: The 'Insurrection' That Wasn't (May 30-31, 2020), Danny Sjursen
2. Do Police Face Less Discipline Than U.S. Soldiers?, Danny Sjursen
3. Military Officers And Vets Uncomfortable With Trump's Domestic 'Battlespace', Mark Perry
4. Book: Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge, Danny Sjursen
5. Book: Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War, Danny Sjursen

Guest: Sam Husseini. The origins of COVID-19 and the novel coronavirus are not yet clear but the possibility of it being the result of bioweapon engineering research or gain-of-function experimentation that makes viruses more deadly or some other scenario have largely been dismissed, from early on, by officials and some scientists and to a large extent suppressed by the corporate media. Regardless of the origin of this pandemic, there needs to be more discussion and airing of different views on this subject and on the topic of the global biological arms race that is very real and happening largely outside of the public view.

There's an extra/bonus segment for patrons on the question of privatized and/or covert biowarfare research, a short discussion with Sam and some additional information that I later added, reading from some articles and adding some commentary to expand a little and for important context. You can find that at Patreon, Episode 167 EXTRA.

Sam Husseini, a writer and artist living in Maryland. He has been published in The Nation, Consortium News, CounterPunch and elsewhere. He is senior analyst for the Institute for Public Accuracy. He's also founder of VotePact.org -- which helps break out of the two party bind.

FOLLOW @SamHusseini. Find his work at husseini.org.

Around the Empire is listener supported, independent media. Pitch in at Patreon: patreon.com/aroundtheempire or paypal.me/aroundtheempirepod. Find all links at aroundtheempire.com.

SUBSCRIBE on YouTube. FOLLOW @aroundtheempire and @joanneleon. SUBSCRIBE/FOLLOW on iTunes, iHeart, Spotify, Google Play, Facebook or on your preferred podcast app.

Recorded on May 22, 2020. Music by Fluorescent Grey.

Reference Links:

1. Averting our Gaze from Biowarfare: Pandemics and Self-fulfilling Prophecies, Sam Husseini
2. Did this virus come from a lab? Maybe not — but it exposes the threat of a biowarfare arms race, Sam Husseini, Salon
3. Questioning the CDC: Is it a Complete Coincidence That China's Only BSL4 Is in Wuhan? -- Audio and Video, Sam Husseini
4. Perspectives on the Pandemic | Investigative Journalist Sam Husseini | Episode 7, Journeyman Films

Guest: Aaron Maté. Key allegations from the Russiagate conspiracy have now officially collapsed with the release of transcripts from witness interviews that were conducted over the past three years. Now the walls are truly closing in and not in the way the Trump-Russia obsessed media presented it in the past. Key Obama administration officials, under oath, said they had no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Perhaps the biggest blow was delivered by Crowdstrike, the private cybersecurity firm that served as a critical source on the Russian hacking claim. We now know that Crowdstrike's president told Congress more than two years ago that it had no real evidence that Russian hackers exfiltrated emails and passed them to Wikileaks. Aaron notes, in an understated manner, that this "raises new questions about whether Special Counsel Robert Mueller, intelligence officials and Democrats misled the public." At the end of the interview, there's an extra/bonus segment for patrons on the question of which forces were driving the Russiagate conspiracy. You can find that at Patreon, Episode 166 EXTRA.

Aaron is the host of the Pushback With Aaron Maté show at the Grayzone and a contributing writer at The Nation.

FOLLOW Aaron on Twitter @aaronjmate, subscribe to his show Pushback with Aaron Maté at the Grayzone channel on YouTube and support him at Patreon.

Around the Empire is listener supported, independent media. Pitch in at Patreon: patreon.com/aroundtheempire or paypal.me/aroundtheempirepod. Find all links at aroundtheempire.com.

SUBSCRIBE on YouTube. FOLLOW @aroundtheempire and @joanneleon. SUBSCRIBE/FOLLOW on iTunes, iHeart, Spotify, Google Play, Facebook or on your preferred podcast app.

Recorded on May 21, 2020. Music by Fluorescent Grey.

Reference Links:

1. Hidden Over 2 Years: Dem Cyber-Firm's Sworn Testimony It Had No Proof of Russian Hack of DNC, Aaron Maté
2. House Intel transcripts
3. 5/7/20 Remarks by President Trump in Meeting with Governor Abbott of Texas
4. 5/8/20 President Trump Meets with Republican Members of Congress

Guest: Yasha Levine. We talk about his new series on Substack, titled Immigrants as a Weapon. Yasha refers to this as an "investigative newsletter" about "weaponized immigrants, oligarchs, and the twisted politics of American power". He refers to himself as "a Soviet immigrant living in an era of American decline" and it speaks for itself as to why his perspective is so perfect for this fascinating topic. At the end of the discussion, there's an extra segment on surveillance and contact tracing. It's a separate bonus extra for patrons titled Episode 165 EXTRA Surveillance and Contact Tracing in the Pandemic Era.

Yasha Levine is an investigative journalist and author. Born in Leningrad, he grew up in San Francisco, and just moved back to California. He has reported from all over the world — with a focus on America and the former Soviet Union. He is the author of Surveillance Valley:The Secret Military History of the Internet, a book about the forgotten counterinsurgency origins of the Internet. He's also working on some documentary projects, including one about California's Oligarch Valley.

FOLLOW @yashalevine SUBSCRIBE to his Substack investigative newsletter, Immigrants as a Weapon. Read his book Surveillance Valley and visit his website yashalevine.com

Around the Empire is listener supported, independent media. Pitch in at Patreon: patreon.com/aroundtheempire or paypal.me/aroundtheempirepod. Find all links at aroundtheempire.com.

SUBSCRIBE on YouTube. FOLLOW @aroundtheempire and @joanneleon. SUBSCRIBE/FOLLOW on iTunes, iHeart, Spotify, Google Play, Facebook or on your preferred podcast app.

Reference Links:

1. Weaponized Immigrants and the History of America's Imperial Propaganda Machine, Yasha Levine
2. Weaponizing Fascism for Democracy: The Beginning, Yasha Levine

Swapcast: Around the Empire's Joanne Leon and Dan Wright and Foreign Policy Focus host Kyle Anzalone discuss the origins of Russiagate. For three years, we have been fighting to debunk the fake news created about the imagined Russian conspiracy to help Trump beat Hillary. Now, the fake news and false allegations have run dry and some of the faces behind it are being exposed. We discuss the unmaskings and why it is so important.

FOLLOW Kyle on Twitter: @Kyaaale. SUBSCRIBE to the Foreign Policy Focus podcast at the Libertarian Institute. Follow Dan Wright @DanSWright

Around the Empire is listener supported, independent media. Pitch in at Patreon: patreon.com/aroundtheempire or paypal.me/aroundtheempirepod. Find all links at aroundtheempire.com.

SUBSCRIBE on YouTube. FOLLOW @aroundtheempire and @joanneleon. SUBSCRIBE/FOLLOW on iTunes, iHeart, Spotify, Google Play, Facebook or on your preferred podcast app.

Recorded on May 14, 2020.

Reference Links:

1. Foreign Policy Focus Debunking Russiagate series: episode 211, episode 212 and episode 213